


Of sand and scrubs

by fortytworedvines



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, First Meeting, Fluff, Internet friendship, minor appearances by cam and charlotte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24697069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortytworedvines/pseuds/fortytworedvines
Summary: Bernie hadn’t meant to fall in love. She definitely hadn’t meant to fall in love with somebody on the other side of the world, that she’d only met on an online forum for surgeons.
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Comments: 26
Kudos: 121





	Of sand and scrubs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bat_and_Breakfast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bat_and_Breakfast/gifts).



> Bat and I were thinking about ways they could have met before Bernie was blown up. Happy Birthday Bat! Hope you have a great day xx

Bernie hadn’t meant to fall in love. She definitely hadn’t meant to fall in love with somebody on the other side of the world, that she’d only met on an online forum for surgeons.

* * *

It was Charlie’s idea that she sign up to some forums. Bernie had mentioned in an email how she felt cut off from the NHS, that if one day, heaven forbid, she needed to leave the army, she’d need to know a bit more about what it was like to work back in the cash-starved world she’d trained in. And Charlie, bless her, had done a bit of investigation and sent her a link to a forum for surgeons in the UK.

Bernie signed up that evening and, finding herself with some blissful down time, trawled through the previous posts to see what it was all about. She found wide-ranging discussions from everything from suture techniques to petitioning local councils for funding. There were lots of different views presented but the arguments were civil. She browsed for a while before signing off, then emailed Charlie to say thanks.

“You’re going to interact, aren’t you mum? Not just lurk?” Charlie said in her next email. “That’s what it’s all about; getting to know people. And choose a good avatar.”

Bernie googled lurking, and then what an avatar was. It was true that she hadn’t uploaded a photo to her profile. She was using her first name – as most people were – but her avatar was just the standard icon. She pondered for a while, then uploaded a particularly arty shot she’d snapped on evening of her combat boots outside with the setting sun behind them.

“Don’t lurk,” she muttered to herself as she read the latest threads. Then she spotted one about the atriocaval shunt. There was something she could contribute to. She jotted down a quick description of her experience performing it and the recovery of the patient afterwards, pleased that she could tell Charlie that she had joined in.

It wasn’t long before her app notification pinged – she’d had a reply. Somebody called Serena, urging her to go into more detail. Serena’s avatar was a glass of red wine, long fingers twined round the stem. Warmed with the thought that she was interesting to at least one person, Bernie obliged.

* * *

Over the next week, Bernie found herself noticing Serena’s posts, found herself generally agreeing with the points she was making and liking the friendly way she made them. She replied to her a few times, getting drawn into a thread about operating in difficult circumstances, and they had a back and forth exchange that lasted over several days.

Then one morning, checking the app from her bed, as she’d started to make a habit, Bernie found a message in her chat inbox. She hadn’t even realised there was a chat option, but there it was: a blinking little envelope on the top of her screen. She opened it curiously.

“ _Hello Bernie_ ,” the message read. “ _Hope you don’t think me presumptuous, but I’ve been fascinated by your posts. Where are you stationed at the moment? I’m in a little city in the UK myself, nothing exciting going on here – apart from the time the helicopter crashed on us.”_

Bernie laughed to herself. Serena definitely knew how to draw a person in. She clicked on Serena’s profile, found out that they were the same age, give or take a few months, and Serena’s speciality was vascular surgery. 

She gave Serena  a few more details of her current station , hoping as she wrote it that she would come across well. She knew only too well that communication was not her strong point and she didn’t want to make a bad impression on somebody she thought could be a friend.

Serena wrote back the same day and Bernie felt an unexpected jump of happiness as she read her message. Serena was interesting and funny and made Bernie want to impress her. 

For a few days their back and forth continued, always about their work and their hospital, until one evening Serena’s message seemed dejected. Bernie frowned a little as she read it, hoping Serena was okay.

“ _Sorry, I lost a patient.”_ Serena sent a moment later. “ _At home trying not to drown my sorrows.”_

Bernie’s fingers wavered over her keyboard. “ _Tell me about the weather,”_ she wrote _. “Is it raining? I miss a good British rain shower.”_ As distractions go it wasn’t the best, she thought, but maybe it would help Serena focus on something else.

Back and forth  the conversation went all evening. They moved on from the weather to their children and Bernie found th at Serena had as problematic relationship with her daughter as Bernie had on occasion with her two.

By the end of the night, when Bernie was lying in her bed, so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, she felt she knew Serena better than she’d known anybody for a long time.

“ _Thanks Bernie_ ,” Serena’s last message ran. “ _Sleep well, soldier.”_

* * *

Over the next few days, Bernie abandoned any pretence she might have held that she was talking to Serena for professional purposes. She checked her phone at every possible opportunity, hoping for a message from her. Maybe Serena felt the same because though her messages were short, they arrived frequently – updating Bernie on silly goings on on her ward and how many glasses of wine she had managed to get through in the evening. Bernie tried her best to reciprocate, sharing the occasional funny moment from her own work. She was beginning to consider Serena her friend, maybe her best friend. She tried to ignore the way her heart jumped every time she saw that Serena had sent her a message.

* * *

One day a sandstorm hit. Bernie could barely see her way across to the next building in the camp and her journey from the mess to her own room left her caked from head to toe in sand. She grinned at herself in the mirror and snapped a photo, sent it to Serena with the caption, “ _B_ _et you don’t have to contend with this_ _sort of thing_.”

Only when she’d sent it did she realise she’d never sent Serena a photo of herself before, worried immediately that she was crossing some sort of boundary, or that Serena wouldn’t like the look of her. She put the phone down, had a quick wash and tried to make herself concentrate on tidying up her room, too full of jitters to settle down with a book. Eventually she gave up and, teeth gritted, checked her phone.

“ _It’s my day off ;)_ ” Serena wrote. And there was a picture from her. Sprawled in a garden chair, glass of something in her hand, dark hair, a wicked look in her eyes as she smiled at the camera for her selfie. 

Bernie pressed a hand to her thundering heart. Serena was  _beautiful_ . She sat down with a thump on her bed, unable to take her eyes off Serena’s photo.  She’d liked Serena – more than liked her, she finally admitted to herself – before, but now... Oh, now she was in trouble.

“ _Can hardly see you with all that sand_ ,” Serena wrote again, “ _Send me another when you’re all cleaned up, won’t you?”_

“ _Fatigues or civvies?”_ Bernie felt suddenly reckless.

“ _Oh, soldier, you know the answer to that ;)”_

Was this flirting? It felt like flirting. She stared at Serena’s photo, hardly daring to believe that a woman so gorgeous could possibly be interested in her.

“ _Tomorrow morning_ ,” she suggested.  
“ _Can hardly wait_.”

“ _What are you doing with your day off?_ ” Bernie asked, “ _Looks like you’re having a pleasant afternoon._ ”

“ _Sunshine, wine, a book I’m ignoring and currently, your excellent company. A very pleasant afternoon._ ”

“ _It sounds perfect._ ”

“ _When are you next on leave? You can come round and share it with me._ ”

“Oh,” Bernie breathed. Her mind filled with tantalising images of her and Serena lounging side by side, of Bernie leaning over to press a kiss to those red lips…

“ _I’d love that_ ,” she said, “ _It would be great to meet you._ ”

“ _Likewise._ ”

It was only a month till Bernie would be back in the UK. Her heart thumped at the idea that in a few short weeks she might meet Serena in person.

They talked all evening, until Bernie was tucked up in bed, her eyes drooping, but still unwilling to say goodnight. Eventually she admitted defeat, and told Serena she needed to sleep.

“ _Sleep well, Bernie,_ ” Serena said. Bernie smiled to herself and then “ _x_ ” appeared and Bernie’s heart turned over.

“ _Goodnight Serena,_ ” she said, and her finger wavered slightly before reciprocating, and sending her own “ _x_ ” back.

Bernie turned over, snuggled into her pillow and drifted off to sleep with her phone still clutched in one hand.

The first thing she looked at in the morning was Serena’s picture. She could still barely believe Serena had sent it. She ran her thumb over her screen. Serena looked no less beautiful than she had done the night before.

She was just about to leave her room, uniform crisp and clean, when she remembered Serena’s request of the day before. Bernie was no good at selfies – Charlie had laughed a lot at her last attempt – so instead she stood in front of the mirror and tried to get a good shot that way. Somehow it seemed a lot more important than her joking shot of the day before. It took a bit of faff but eventually she had a photo she was pleased with, sent it to Serena before hastening over to the mess hall.

It was a long, long day and by the time she got back to her room she’d almost forgotten the picture.

“ _Oh soldier!_ ” was the first thing she saw when she unlocked her phone. With a laugh, she sat on her bed and scrolled through Serena’s reaction, thrilled that Serena had appreciated it, and her, so much.

And then – at the end – Serena had sent another photo. “ _My battle clothes,_ ” she said, “ _I hate my bloody scrubs!_ ” She was pouting. Bernie thought she looked adorable. She could also see a tantalising hint of the curvaceous body under the scrubs.

“Getting ahead of yourself, Wolfe,” she muttered when she caught herself imagining peeling those scrubs off Serena. “ _They look good on you,_ ” she said, hesitated a little before adding a “ _;)_ ”

“ _Glad you think so!_ ” Serena said. “ _Not as good as your get up._ ”

* * *

With two photos of Serena now carefully saved to her phone, Bernie thought she was in heaven. When she wasn’t talking to Serena, she was staring at her pictures and mentally counting down the days till she was back in the UK.

With one week to go before her leave, she had Serena’s address and a standing invitation to come round as soon as she could. Bernie would have to visit Cam and Charlie first, but then a whole day at Serena’s was in her diary. She couldn’t wait, had butterflies in her stomach every time she thought about it, nerves and excitement all mixed together.

* * *

She was staring out of the window of the vehicle, daydreaming, on the way back to the camp when the world went black.

She was aware of sounds, and pain, and then it all went black again. She dreamed of Serena, out of reach, tried to cry out to her.

“It’s alright, Bernie. You’re going to be okay,” a voice said and she subsided.

There was a plane, then an ambulance, and then a crisp hospital bed.

* * *

Finally, she woke up properly, rose from the depths of her subconscious, blinking and with great relief. She was in a hospital room on her own, and the sky outside was grey. Home, perhaps. She sighed and let herself drift back into natural sleep.

* * *

When she woke up again, there was somebody sitting next to her.

“I knew you were eager to see me, but don’t you think this was going a bit too far?”

Bernie blinked. Dancing eyes met her gaze and she gasped. “Serena?”

“The very same.” Serena reached out and covered Bernie’s hand with her own. Bernie grasped it firmly. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been worse,” Bernie said, and her voice was raspy. Serena handed her a glass of water and she sipped it gratefully.

“Have you really?” Serena raised an eyebrow and despite her situation, Bernie’s insides twinged.

“Probably not,” she admitted. “Can I see my notes?” Serena handed them over and Bernie scanned them quickly. “Have you read them?”

Serena gave a short little nod.

“So they’ll be operating soon.” Bernie nibbled her lip. “Better get it all done at once, I think. Less risk that way.”

Serena gave another little nod and glanced away.

“Hey.” Bernie squeezed her hand. “Talk to me.”

“I was worried,” Serena admitted. “When you didn’t message me I wondered if something had happened and then you were on the news. I was scared I’d never talk to you again.”

“But you are talking to me.” Bernie ran her thumb gently over Serena’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Serena.”

“Promise?”

“I’ve spent too long thinking about kissing you to go anywhere before I’ve managed it,” Bernie said before she could stop herself.

Serena’s eyes lit up. “You have, have you?”

Bernie grinned. “You look like the cat who’s got the cream.”

Serena laughed, then sighed. “This isn’t exactly how I thought our first meeting would go.”

Bernie relaxed back into her bed and squeezed Serena’s hand again. “So tell me about it. What was your plan?”

“Take you out for lunch. I know a nice little Italian with an extensive wine list. Then home to sit in the garden with a glass of wine and talk. And then...” Serena trailed off.

“And then?” Bernie prompted.

“Well, I’d kiss you, I suppose. If you’d wanted me to.”

“I would have wanted you to,” Bernie said softly. “So, a date. We’d have gone on a date. I’d have liked that.”

“As soon as you’re out of here,” Serena promised, “I’m wining and dining you like you deserve.”

“Sounds perfect.” Bernie smiled. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to a kiss now?”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Here? In the hospital where I work and you’re a patient?”

“Oh go on. Never broken a rule, Campbell? I refuse to believe it.”

“Sounds like a challenge to me,” Serena muttered. But she got out of her chair and sat herself carefully on the edge of Bernie’s bed. “Just a taster. We’ll save the good stuff till you’re out, okay?”

She was ever so close to Bernie now, and Bernie held her breath as Serena leaned in, brushed soft lips against Bernie’s ever so briefly.

“Oh,” Bernie sighed as Serena pulled away. “Just like I imagined.”

Serena didn’t move back to her chair, instead stayed perched on the edge of the bed, stroking Bernie’s hand gently. “Have you done a lot of imagining?”

“Ever since you sent that first photo,” Bernie admitted. “I knew I liked you before but god, you were beautiful in that.”

“And you, caked in sand, the most gorgeous soldier I’ve ever seen.”

Bernie laughed. “Not really?”

“Really.” Serena paused a moment. “I’m so glad we started talking.”

“Me too. I can’t -” Bernie hesitated, “I can’t really imagine my life without you, now.”

They sat, smiling at each other, hands clasped, until suddenly Serena’s pager beeped. “Blast,” she muttered, “Can’t a woman pay a social call in this hospital?”

“Go on, get back to it. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Serena got up from the bed with a sigh. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

* * *

Bernie’s next visitors were her children. With one on each side of her, thrilled to have them both so close, Bernie told them that she’d met someone.

“In the army, mum?” Cam asked.

“I met her online, actually.”

There was a little pause. Bernie’s romantic activities had all been purely theoretical since she’d realised she was a lesbian and left her husband, and she wasn’t entirely sure how her children would react. When Charlie spoke, it wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

“Online! You?!”

“What do you mean, _me_?” Bernie huffed.

“Come on mum, you, on a dating site?” Cam said. “It’s not exactly where we thought you’d find a girlfriend. What was it, tinder?”

“It wasn’t on a dating site!” Bernie exclaimed, “I met her on the – uh – the forum that Charlie found. For surgeons.”

Then she sat nonplussed while Charlie and Cameron howled with laughter.

“Oh mum,” Charlie gasped eventually, wiping, “Only you. Honestly.”

* * *

The children left and the surgeons came to discuss her operation. She wasn’t impressed, put them in their place and told them how to do their job. Then she slept.

She woke up to find Serena sitting in the visitors chair again. “Hey, you,” she murmured.

“Hey,” Serena said, and moved instantly to the bed to take Bernie’s hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Bernie admitted. “They’re doing the op tomorrow.”

“I heard,” Serena said tightly. Her fingers tightened around Bernie’s.

“I wasn’t impressed with – what are their names – Valentine and Self. What’s your opinion?”

“They’re good at their jobs,” Serena said, and managed a little smile. “It’s family issues. Valentine is dating Self’s daughter and neither of them are happy about being so closely related.”

“Ah,” Bernie chuckled. “Hospital and family politics. What fun.”

Serena hummed in agreement. “Bernie?”

“Yes?”

“Could I be there? Not in the theatre, but watching. It’s just – I’d like -”

“I’d like that,” Bernie interrupted. “Thank you.”

* * *

She didn’t see Serena again before the operation. Hadn’t expected to, as she was working. But knowing Serena would be there while she was under helped her. It felt very different, being on the table rather than next to it.

“I’ll count you under,” the anaesthetist said, and Bernie closed her eyes and let herself drift away.

It felt familiar, waking to the sight of Serena curled up in the chair by her bed. She was asleep, and her eyes looked puffy. Bernie frowned, then traced her finger gingerly down the dressing that covered her chest. That would leave a big scar.

Serena stirred and sat up. “Bernie.” Her voice was almost a sob. “You’re awake.”

“Serena.” Bernie winced as she reached out to catch Serena’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Your heart stopped,” Serena whispered. “Bernie.”

“I’m here,” Bernie said, squeezing Serena’s hand as tightly as she could to prove it, “I’m here.” She pulled her closer, until she could reach up and pull Serena’s head down to meet her own. “I’m alive,” she whispered as she kissed Serena.

She kissed Serena until she couldn’t kiss her any more and sank back onto her pillow. Serena stroked her hair gently and she sighed into the touch. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, Campbell.”

* * *

The long days in hospital working to regain the strength and ability she’d once taken for granted dragged at Bernie. Her children visited sporadically but Serena managed to drop in around her shifts and on her days off she’d come in, sit in her chair, prop her feet on Bernie’s bed and they’d chat for hours. Sometimes she smuggled in a bottle and they shared a glass of red. It was the highlight of Bernie’s week.

* * *

“What’s that?” Serena said when she joined Bernie one day.

“My discharge papers,” Bernie said, for once not really noticing her.

“Your – what? You’re not being discharged already?”

Bernie finally raised her head to look at Serena. “From the army,” she said flatly. She’d known it was coming, had known that her injuries would surely put an end to her career, but somehow seeing it all in black and white was a punch to the stomach.

“Oh Bernie.” Serena climbed onto Bernie’s bed and Bernie laid her head gratefully in Serena’s lap, let Serena’s fingers running through her hair soothe her. “I’m sorry.”

“What am I going to do with myself?” Bernie wondered.

“Why don’t you concentrate on getting better first?”

“I need to know what I’m aiming for.” She’d always been better at working when there was a goal in mind.

Serena’s fingers stilled for a moment. “Well, what about working here? There are always locum positions available.”

Bernie sighed and relaxed, nestled into Serena. “You’re full of good ideas, you are.” A sudden burst of knowledge exploded in her. “I love you,” she said.

“Move in with me,” Serena said, simultaneously.

Their eyes met. “Okay,” Bernie whispered.

Serena laughed. “I love you too.” She bent and pressed a kiss to Bernie’s head. “I love you too.”

* * *

The day that Bernie was discharged from hospital was bright and sunny, the quintessential British summer’s day. She and Serena lay side by side in deckchairs in Serena’s garden, wine in hand, books unopened beside them. Bernie stretched out, felt the tightness that persisted in her scar, but ignored it in favour of enjoying the gentle sun that was shining down on them. She caught Serena’s hand, raised it to her lips and kissed it gently. “Here’s to online discussions of surgical procedures,” she said with a smile as she raised her glass.

“And to us,” Serena said.

Their glasses clinked quietly. It was a beautiful day, and their life together was just beginning.


End file.
